My Favorite and Only 99 Year Old Friend

Wow! Great Great Grandma Inez just celebrated her 99th birthday. She has 5 generations all around her and stands about 4ft. 9 inches of beauty. In this era of botox and plastic surgery, her wrinkles are her loveliness and her mind is 100% clear. She enjoys Janet and my visits and when she hugs us, she holds on and doesn’t let go.

While seniors in the USA live in retirement communities, assisted living and nursing homes, Inez lives in the same neighborhood where she grew up in downtown San Ramon. Women are the glue in Costa Rican culture with Mommies the stars, Inez is a matriarch for the ages. She told me she has 6 children, 22 grandchildren, 45 great grandchildren and 2 great great grandkids. The childless 52-year old man that I am stands amazed … I guess the 2 of us balance out populating the planet in some wild way. As we hung out on her porch, lots of family walked by composing many generations shouting their affection.

Both of my dead grandmothers were born in 1900 and lived until 95. I could feel my grandmas Sonia and Rachel’s energy nearby when I visit with Inez.

Inez’s sister is still alive at 105 and lives directly across the street. She swears that drinking Guaro every day is her secret. (Guaro is a clear liquor made from sugar cane and is the national drink of Costa Rica in the same way that tequila is the drink of Mexico.) I have a few shots myself every day and it has helped me retain a Pura Vida Costa Rica vision of life for the last 6 years.

Inez somehow went to the University of Costa Rica to discover a bigger world, rare for a woman of her time. She became a teacher and taught in El Empalme for forty years, which strangely is where I have my organic coffee farm. She rode a horse 45 minutes every day to get to work while I make the 8-minute drive on a regular basis. She earned 75 Colones a month as a teacher. That was when Colones had real value!!! (The current exchange rate is about 500 Colones for $1.) 5 Colones isn’t worth squat today, but then it was paper money rather than a worthless coin.

Her husband was part of the Costa Rican Revolution in the 1940’s whose leaders were from San Ramon. As she shared her story, an alcoholic female neighbor passed by and Inez went in the house to get a loaf of bread to give her and said her style is to still try to help everyone when she can. I jokingly asked her if she had a boyfriend these days but she told me she didn’t want the obligation.

Her vision is fairly simple. If you have enough food to eat, your health and family around you … it’s reason to be happy and not obsess on more complex desires. This joy has consistently revealed itself to me in San Ramon while in the richest country in the World, people often focus on what they don’t have.

Inez is a beautiful woman/person in every way and I’m proud to call her my friend. It’s pretty easy for me to whine about what I wish was different. A visit to my 99-year old friend Inez, keeps life in a healthy perspective.

The World is Flat

Living here in Costa Rica in Spanish allows me to be right in the Tico culture. It also tires me out by the end of the day. Like many ex-pats, having some great reads in English is a nice relaxing treat. As a New York Times devotee for most of my life, I easily devoured The World is Flat by Times writer Thomas Friedman.

I recommend The World is Flat as a must read for anybody wanting a big life that sees the possibility to utilize the whole world no matter where you are geographically. People no longer have to be in the same location to share information and collaborate. You no longer have to be a huge corporation to have an impact on people all over the world. An individual person's creativity allows growth, not just the amount of money one throws at a situation. This book basically describes our International life and the life of a blogger (as well as many other situations).

What a different world. I guess I'm old as I can remember living in a world without the internet and cell phones. When I traveled in Europe at the age of 17 in 1972, I used to mail aerograms to family and friends. They took about 10 days to arrive and were totally obsolete by the time they did. In a way, my travels in the 70's allowed me to really remain in my experience.... cut off from my familiar world....but in another way, the reality of living in Costa Rica is much easier now. I can keep in touch with family and friends, do business with internet banking, etc...

It's been amazing and fun for me to have readers from all the continents.... 25+ countries and growing. There was the nice note from Australia from a woman who had the same magical feelings as me about San Ramon a decade ago. She googled the bar/club Secretos and ended up on our blog and website www.costaricapm.com.

The funniest and biggest contrast was seeing that we have at least 1 reader in Baghdad. San Ramon and Costa Rica, a country without an army could clearly be the ultimate fantasy for someone living the violent insane life that exists in Iraq. It would be a total pleasure to find a home for someone in San Ramon after they survived the war in Iraq.

Life no longer needs to be a black and white choice of one thing or another but can be your own melange of what works for you. Enjoy the book, The World is Flat, and more importantly enjoy opening up your mind to how rich and global your life can be.

Drinking The First Organic Coffee From Our Farm

It still seems way outside probability that I would ever own an organic coffee farm in Costa Rica. From my roots in Brooklyn and Ithaca NY, this has been a long journey in many ways.

This year, we have over 50 lbs. of coffee to enjoy and share with friends and family. We've been told a few hundred pounds of coffee is just a few harvests away.We turned the farm organic this year, lessening our yield while we learned about the plants and trees on our hillside acre. The banana, plantano, limon, orange, mango and other trees are trimmed and next year we should have a larger coffee yield and make better use of the fruit which shades the coffee.

The good news...the quality of our coffee is excellent. We brought our picked coffee to my friend Martin Rodriquez who is both an organic coffee farmer and also has a small roasting operation. Whereas with the San Ramon Coop, which mixes coffee beans from many local farms, Martin could keep all our beans separate and it is always fun hanging with Martin. Martin roasted it a little darker than normal as we discussed and the flavor is excellent with hints of chocolate and a rich full body.

Brewing our first crop of coffee from our farm has been a daily treat.

Our farm has the highest altitude coffee in El Empalme. It is a classic pueblo, with a school, church and very simple way of life. Our neighbors rarely seem stressed and have taught me a lot in terms of prorities and what's important.

While we enjoy our coffee, our people are working at the farm to make it an even better place in the future.

Life's a trip. You just gotta make room for what life might bring your way.... even the improbable possibilities.

Lunch in the Parque Central

It's cool to just hang out in the Parque Central, the heart of the city. I'm always amazed at how many people are just sitting, talking to their friends and taking in life. There's not many places in the world where the weather rarely gets hot or cold and people don't consider work or rushing around as the defining aspect of their life.

February is the beginning of the school year so today the park was filled with hordes of uniformed school kids bursting with energy. Each group seems to have their bench or location and it's quite a lively scene throughout the day.

Janet and I also ran into our friend David who works at our building supply store Gema taking his lunch hour hanging in the park with his co-workers.

Anybody can pass their life away as a workaholic grabbing a few brass rings along the way. My friends and neighbors in San Ramon make an art form of enjoying life. I've learned a lot from them and enjoyed my afternoon walking to town, choosing a bench and enjoying the scene at the parque central.

My Dinner With Juan

I met Juan a number of years ago when he was the head teller at Banco Popular. At 25 years old, he was half the age of many of those working under his supervision. Juan would help me in English in order to practice. Over time, he would be anticipating my bank stops, saving up lists of words and idioms for translation.

Now he works for Proctor and Gamble in San Jose, a prestigious job in Costa Rica, and during our dinner we both spoke about the challenges of living in two cultures. There are huge and numerous differences that we both see from our outsider vantage point of a foreigner living in another culture.

When he calls Cincinnati, and asks his suppliers how they are, they often respond with, “Not too bad.” There are only two answers for most Ticos to “How are you?” … Todo Bien or Pura Vida. For a Costa Rican to even have the word bad in your answer is socially unacceptable,

Juan was trained at P & G to give great service to “go the extra mile.” This is a new concept for him. In Costa Rica, “No Hay” is the most common response when a worker doesn’t have what you ask for. It is rarely followed by an explanation or a further attempt to find out more specific information.

At Banco Popular, Juan’s co-workers routinely kissed each other on the cheek to say hi and touched each other playfully and jokingly. He learned at P & G that this could be considered sexual harassment at a large U.S. company.

There is no right or wrong here, just 2 different cultural realities and norms. In order to best live in a foreign culture, it helps to understand the paradigm shifts. I’ve seen many non-Costa Ricans here filled with frustration and confusion when situations defy their logic and past experience. It’s been a long journey for me to flow smoothly here and has required a premium of patience and openness…and few shots of Guaro.

My Dinner With Juan was cool for both of us to discuss and laugh about our observations from living in each other’s cultures.

Living in the culture is an expression of eco-tourism.